Booz Allen Hamilton: Edward Snowden News 'Shocking', 'A Grave Violation'

[Grassy Knoll]

Source: huffingtonpost.com

Their statement reads:

Booz Allen can confirm that Edward Snowden, 29, has been an employee of our firm for less than 3 months, assigned to a team in Hawaii. News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/09/booz-allen-hamilton-edward-snowden-nsa_n_3412609.html

[flamingdem]

1. Can Snowden get his unemployment check sent

to Hongkong?

[karynnj]

2. Uhm, you don't get unemployment if you only worked 3 months

Or if you are fired for cause.

[flamingdem]

3. .. or if you revealed state's secrets

probably, but who knows

[timdog44]

4. But I heard

he was going to Iceland.

[flamingdem]

5. Would you rather be stuck in Hong Kong or Iceland

for the rest of your life?

[timdog44]

6. Now that is another

question altogether. I think I would give Hong Kong a try.

[flamingdem]

7. Me too but..

.. on another thread it says there IS an extradition treaty between the US and Hong Kong. Oops

[timdog44]

10. But he is spy.

And should be able to come up with another identity.

[okaawhatever]

13. Yes, there was also something on cnn earlier saying the state dept could revoke his passport and

Hong Kong could deport him. That would probably be the faster/easier way. It wouldn't surprise me if he took a few secrets we have on China/Hong Kong to trade for asylum. That's what most asylum seekers try to do.

[unblock]

8. haven't been to hong kong, but iceland is a wonderful place!

[PasadenaTrudy]

21. Sounds cooler there at least! n/t

[Bo]

24. ECUADOR BABY

[Iliyah]

29. I donno

in Iceland all those lovely blonds, but Hong Kong is move lively - LOL.

Iceland would be the best place tho for his safety. Although I do not approve his actions, he did what he thought was best in his mind.

[Sunlei]

9. less than 3 months and he has hands on classified docs and runs to the press. was he a plant?

"curiouser and curiouser"

[flamingdem]

11. If he escapes extradition you've got to wonder about Chinese

involvement. Who knows.

[Sunlei]

16. he's in hong kong, thats duel usa and china citizenship lands (I think)

either his ex-company and/or the gov can grab him. They both probably will.

[Berlin Expat]

20. Ironic you should mention that:

Read this.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/former-cia-officer-officials-considering-nsa-whistleblowers-case-potential-chinese-espionage/

[flamingdem]

23. Hard to believe he was corrupted by money

got to wonder if Greenwald is guilty in some respect here. This is pushing his career, destroying Snowden's career.

[JDPriestly]

30. I don't think Greenwald has that kind of money or

appeal.

Snowden may really have been shocked by the program. Is that too hard to believe? Every once in a while a person with integrity shows up.

On the other hand, he may have made a deal with the Chinese.

Time will tell. I wouldn't jump to a conclusion either way.

There are true idealists in the word. There are also duplicitous types.

But I should think if Snowden had sold secrets, he would be quieter about it -- sneakier. So the odds are slightly better that he is an idealist.

The facts that he revealed are very shocking and might actually cause a person to sacrifice himself just to get them to the public. This program, regardless of why Snowden revealed it, is a great threat to our country. The program itself. Not its revelation. The program is the greater threat.

[sikofit3]

34. ++1000

[truth2power]

35. Thank you, JD, for bringing some sanity to the discussion. Especially this...

This program, regardless of why Snowden revealed it, is a great threat to our country. The program itself. Not its revelation. The program is the greater threat.

We should not be distracted by attempts to focus only on personalities (kill the messenger, so to speak). That way, any discussion of the heinous practices themselves can be muted.

BTW..I do read all of what you write. I'll be in touch.

[timdog44]

14. Kind of like Bradley Manning being a lowly enlisted man

and having to take the blame for something that his superiors should be shouldering. Unless in the spy world the work is all done by the underlings and the superiors eat lobster and sip wine.

[Sunlei]

19. manning trial says he spent months unsupervised, playing games, movies, music, surfing web

download anything they wanted.

This man went right for those docs, has a prepared dialog and 'statements', and ran to the press, worked there less than 3 months. He didn't plan this alone imo.

[AnalystInParadise]

26. Well it makes a certain kind of sense actually.

Many people in the intel world know exactly where a lot of data is kept, Hawaii is one of those places because of all the military branches and agencies that are here. Secondly if you think about it Hawaii is six hours behind the East Coast. Which means that when it is 9 A.M. here in Hawaii it is 3 P.M. in Washington. Our government is a giant bureaucracy but most work stops at 5 pm EST, in Hawaii it is not even lunch time yet, which means that next to no one is paying attention since most workers at NSA Maryland work on the first shift. If I wanted to collect data and did not want anyone to know what I was doing, I would find somewhere with a huge data node and as far from the flagpole as possible. Hawaii fits the bill perfectly......Secondly, it has several routes to leave, again with the time zone difference and physical distance from Washington D.C. this seemed like a smart plan.....I can see one person acting alone to come up with this plan....I just thought it up and I am not working with anyone.

[JDPriestly]

31. Why do you care?

The program stinks. It is a threat to self-government. It is incompatible with the Bill of Rights in a number of respects.

Snowden may be a bad guy or a good guy. That is irrelevant because the program that he outed is just so hideous, such a huge threat to our freedom, that why would anyone care what his motivation is.

Anything our government is doing in terms of surveillance is probably equaled or surpassed by a couple of other countries with or without the help of someone like Snowden.

Obama has claimed that the Chinese stole defense secrets from us. If they could do that, they could have also penetrated this stupid surveillance program. I think that China already has a similar program that it uses on its citizens. Why would it want to encourage Snowden to talk about the U.S. program?

So, I don't know, but there are good arguments both ways. I'm grateful that the information about the massive surveillance is in the open. It is completely incompatible with freedom, with the Bill of Rights, with the checks and balances guaranteed by our Constitution and with everything we value in America.

Why is it incompatible with our constitutional system of checks and balances? Because it gives informational power to the executive branch that permits the executive branch to spy on the members of the other branches if it wishes to do so. I am not saying that has happened. I have more confidence in Obama as a human being than that. But I am saying that the capacity for the executive to spy on members of Congress or the courts is there. So I am happy that this information is now known to the American public and probably better understood by Congress.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

32. you do know that your cell phones can relay every spoken word even when turned off

Unless you remove the battery...
Inside your house, car or on the beach.
Google "Can You Hear Me Now?...ABC News"

[atreides1]

33. Hawaii

He was probably working at Kunia, just down the road from Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Army Airfield, on the island of Oahu.

[AnalystInParadise]

22. No

he probably had his hands on Classified docs by day 7. He already had a TS/SCI he was already a trusted agent, therefore as soon as orientation was done he had his hands on classified docs every day he worked. In the Intel community, if you have the clearance then he can handle the material once his in inprocessed and indoced......

I don't understand why several people now have wondered why after ONLY three months he was allowed to handle the material. What would be freaking weird is if after three months he had not handled classified at all.........

[hughee99]

25. Exactly, if he had been there 30 years, we could instead ask why he knew about it

so long and said nothing. Was he a sleeper?

[graham4anything]

27. this I wonder myself.

[naaman fletcher]

28. He was already cleared

If he worked for the CIA then he probably already had a top secret security clearance. That is worth at least an extra 50K or so per year. Booz Allen probably just relied on that.

[southernyankeebelle]

12. If this young man is smart he'll turn himself in.

[flamingdem]

15. He needs a creative lawyer

asap

[southernyankeebelle]

17. Yes, one who will get him life in prison, instead of the death penalty, LOL.

[flamingdem]

18. On second thought Hong Kong looks pretty good, cut a deal with Peking

and it's excellent food for life.